


loss

by youcouldmakealife



Series: still always in tandem [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 08:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17341895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “You look kinda—” Jake says, cuts himself off, so Georgie guesses it’s not good. Guesses he doesn’t mean the cut on his cheek either.“Just tired,” Georgie says, and when Jake frowns, looks guilty again, “You don’t hit that hard, Lourdey. Just tired.”





	loss

After the All-Star Break they play a four game homestand, and win every single one. They’ve got the best home record in the league, and Georgie feels why every single time they stand for the anthem, the sea of red around them. 

He goes over to the Harts for dinner the night before they fly out for their longest road trip of the season, brings a nice vintage of wine, and it’s nice. That sounds noncommittal, faint praise, but he means it — Hartsy’s wife Eva serves heaping bowls of pasta, thick cut baguette, salad for the adults, green beans and carrots for the kids, Georgie’s glass of red nudging the sippy cup emblazoned with the snowman from Frozen. 

They say grace before dinner and Georgie mumbles along, head bowed, eyes up, watching the solemn little head of Hartsy’s youngest Ellie, hands clasped and voice bright and clear.

Georgie helps Ellie cut her vegetables up, steals a green bean from her and winks conspiratorially when she smiles at him. 

“Got your own greens, Dineen,” Hartsy says, onto him, and when he looks over, he can see exactly where Ellie got her grin from. 

“Ellie’s taste better,” Georgie says, and grins wider when she laughs.

*

They hit California first, Oakland then San Jose then LA, tracing the Pacific coast, tripping through Dallas, a detour up to Nashville before skating all the way southeast to the Atlantic, sticky sunshine almost everywhere they go and plane after plane. 

It’s funny, watching the married guys, dads, get grumpier and grumpier as the trip goes on, while Chaps is practically beaming when they get off the plane in Fort Lauderdale. Well, beaming for him, so it’s just a tiny smile curling at the corner of his mouth. Georgie remembers that feeling, the build up before you got to be in the same place again. His grin probably cracked his face wide open before he went home for Christmas, rookie year. No one asked about it, probably just assumed he was happy to be going home.

“Look at him,” Robbie says, before the game, Chaps frowning hard, like that’s the only way to get himself into game readiness against Jake. He sounds amused, fond. Georgie listens for a trace of resentment, doesn’t hear it. It makes him feel shitty about the twist of it in his stomach. He likes David. Likes Jake, and he’s a great guy. Only total assholes begrudge another person’s happiness.

Georgie likes Jake, and he’s a great guy, but on the ice _he’s_ a total asshole.

None of them are happy after a tripping call on Elliott that upon replay doesn’t actually make contact, Elliott’s stick still a good couple inches away when Jake went down like he got shot. They didn’t call Jake for embellishment, and the Panthers get a power play they don’t deserve, which would be bad enough if the Panthers didn’t score, a one-timer from Jake tipped in by a Panther planted right on the edge of the blue.

“Your — Lourdes is a dick,” Robbie says during intermission, elbowing Chaps.

David scowls, but doesn’t disagree.

If the Caps are gunning for Jake, so are the refs, who clearly realized that trip wasn’t actually a trip after the fact. Georgie would appreciate it, but after some soft calls that the Caps, well, capitalize on, the Panthers start playing for blood, and they get it when Jake throws a hit on Elliott that leaves him visibly shaken. Robbie looks like he’s about to go right after Jake, size be damned, and Georgie really doesn’t want that to happen, because David’s friend or not, Jake won’t go easy on him. Georgie’s seen him beat up his _own_ friends.

You can add Georgie to that list, when he steps in before Robbie can. He holds his own, at least, though it’s not a fight he can say he wins, and when he gets back to the bench they have to tape up a cut along his cheekbone before he can go back on.

“Fucking asshole,” Robbie mutters, and it’s a toss-up whether he’s talking about Jake boarding Elliott or Georgie taking away his chance to get beat up.

“You okay?” David asks after the game. Georgie gives him a thumbs up, but David doesn’t look relieved. “Was that about something?” David asks, then goes red, and it actually takes a second to realize what he’s talking about, it’s been so long since either of them spoke about it, got filed away in Georgie’s brain in ‘things to never think about’, a place that’s gotten a little too crowded, so crowded that things keep popping out of it, haunting him when he least expects them to. Jake’s a good friend. A good guy. Georgie doesn’t know what he’d do if he knew, and he isn’t really in a position to lose what friends he has right now.

“Just stepped in before Robbie broke his face on Jake’s fist,” Georgie says. “Nothing else.”

“Jake wouldn’t do that,” David says confidently, and that’s love right there. Not true at all, but love. “You’re still bleeding, you know.”

Georgie snorts. Jake wouldn’t do that, indeed.

Jake’s sent him a text, _sry abt punching u :( meet me?_ , and Georgie’s got no other plans, so after the tape’s replaced by proper stitches he goes to meet Jake a safe distance from the visitor’s dressing room. Elliott’s still a little woozy, almost certainly concussed, and Georgie doesn’t trust Robbie not to attack on sight, verbally at minimum.

“Sorry about your face, bud,” Jake says. “Buy you a drink to make up for it?”

“Don’t want to cut in on your David time or anything,” Georgie says. “Unless he’s mad at you?” 

Georgie could see that if it was Robbie or Oleg or Raf, who’s become David’s personal rookie. Not so much him, but maybe it was the hit on Elliott. Blindside cheap shot. It’s funny, the way Jake can throw those, throw punches, and then settle back into one of the nicest guys Georgie’s ever met the second he gets off the ice. A cognitive dissonance sort of thing. 

“Him and Volkie need a bro-moment,” Jake says. “I’m meeting up with him after.”

“By meeting up you mean—” Georgie says, and laughs when Jake whacks him, a whole lot gentler than he did on the ice. “Buy me two drinks,” Georgie says. “For my two stitches.”

“Two stitches is barely anything,” Jake says, but he looks guilty. “How’s Matthews?”

“Bit banged up,” Georgie says, and Jake looks guiltier. “C’mon slugger, let’s get my two drinks,” Georgie says, throwing an arm around Jake’s shoulder, and a passing Panther he vaguely recognizes gives them a long-suffering look.

“Stop befriending your victims!” the guy yells.

“He was my friend before he was my victim!” Jake yells back.

“That is not better, Cap!” the guy yells, and Georgie starts laughing, Jake not far behind.

Georgie almost regrets telling Jake he owes him two drinks when they’re halfway through their first round at what Georgie is starting to think is the only bar in Sunrise, because he knows Jake will insist on honoring it, and honestly, he just wants to hit the sack. It’s been a long trip, and just because he doesn’t have anything to come home to doesn’t mean he doesn’t sleep better when he’s there. His cheek’s started throbbing with his pulse where Jake cut him, but the one time he touched his fingers to it Jake frowned, penitent looking, so he leaves it alone.

“All good with the Caps?” Jake asks, after they’ve caught up about all of the far flung arms of USNTDP. Georgie’s got pretty much all of them on social media, but Jake seems to talk to them, and not just, say, Rutledge, playing with the Kings, but Grosse, playing in Germany now, Weiner, who tore his ankle to shreds a few years back, is off getting his master’s. Jake barely played with most of them outside of international tourneys, opted early on to go do the CHL route, but then, ten years after some exploratory handjobs Jake’s still grabbing drinks with Georgie, so. There probably isn’t a single barn he walks into where he isn’t friends with someone.

“Sure,” Georgie says. 

“You look kinda—” Jake says, cuts himself off, so Georgie guesses it’s not good. Guesses he doesn’t mean the cut on his cheek either.

“Just tired,” Georgie says, and when Jake frowns, looks guilty again, “You don’t hit that hard, Lourdey. Just tired.”

Jake gets a call when they’re finishing up their second round, David, undoubtedly, from the look on his face, pays up while Georgie orders an Uber and slings an arm around his shoulder to wait with him, even though presumably he’s vibrating to get where David is.

Georgie gets up to the floor most of them are staying on just as Robbie’s coming out of one of the rooms, closing the door so gently behind him Georgie can barely hear the lock click. Elliott’s room, then, and Robbie taking care with the noise level confirms Georgie’s suspicion about the concussion.

“Went out?” Robbie asks, and Georgie doesn’t know whether he hears something in it or not.

“Lourdey owed me a beer or two for the right hooks,” Georgie says. “Matthews okay?”

“Not really,” Robbie says. “They’re sending him home tomorrow morning. Concussion protocol.”

“Shit,” Georgie says. 

“Yeah,” Robbie says, then, awkwardly pointing a thumb at the room across the hall from Georgie’s, “That’s me, so.”

“Night,” Georgie says.

“Yeah,” Robbie says.

Georgie waits until after Robbie gets into his room to go to his, so they don’t do that shit where they keep walking together after a goodbye. Life’s awkward enough without adding to it. Takes a shower, blistering hot, which seems to wake scrapes he didn’t even know he had. There’s something still buzzing in him, Georgie doesn’t know what. Pent up aggression from the fight, maybe, frustration that he lost. He doesn’t fight that much, but when he does, he generally wins it. Jake’s got a hell of a lot more practice, though, and it showed. Not that much blood, but they fed him a couple painkillers before they stitched him up, just Tylenol or Advil or something, and they’re starting to wear off right on schedule, Georgie hitting genuinely hurting by the time he’s gotten in bed. Jake did a better job on Georgie than he thought, because without the drugs, any lingering adrenaline beyond that itch of aggression, his skin starts feeling too tight, head throbbing.

Georgie was sure he packed Tylenol, but the bottle isn’t in his shaving kit, where it always is, isn’t anywhere else, even when he tears his suitcase apart looking for it. David would have some, but there’s no way he isn’t at Jake’s right now. Hartsy, but he’s an early sleeper, gets razzed for it by the guys, so there’s no way he’s awake. Cap Q wouldn’t mind, if he’s up, but Georgie doesn’t know if he is.

Georgie lies back down, squeezes his eyes shut, which only gets his head throbbing harder. Endures it for a few minutes, trying to relax his muscles, but it feels like every single muscle he relaxes focuses his brain on where it isn’t relaxed, the tight pull over his knuckles, his cheek, which feels swollen, too big for him, his aching head. He tells himself his head probably feels ten times better than Elliott’s does right now, and he’s sure it’s true, but it doesn’t help. 

Georgie grabs his phone, texts, _You got any Tylenol?_ along with his room number. He’s not really expecting an answer, definitely not expecting a knock on the door two minutes later, has to hurriedly grab his dress pants from the floor to answer. Robbie’s just in sweats, sitting low on his hips, enough that Georgie can tell they’re all he’s wearing, hair flat on one side like he’d been in bed. Probably wasn’t even wearing the sweats a minute ago, pulled them on to cross the hallway, as obvious as the belt hanging loose from Georgie’s pants.

“That better not have been a euphemism or some shit,” Robbie says, snappish, like he caught Georgie looking, brandishing a travel bottle of pills like a weapon.

“It wasn’t,” Georgie says.

“Aspirin,” Robbie says. “All I got.”

“Thanks,” Georgie says. 

“Can’t have you playing like shit against Tampa,” Robbie says, like he can’t do anything nice for Georgie without a reason. Which is maybe the case, honestly. A way for Robbie to keep things square in his head. Fuck knows Georgie can’t.

“Thanks,” Georgie repeats, but Robbie doesn’t hand them over.

“Why’d you fight him?” Robbie asks. Asks like he doesn’t know the answer. Robbie’s good at those, rhetorical questions meant more to shove his face in something than anything else. Georgie doesn’t know if that’s a new skill or if it’s just something he never used against Georgie before Georgie got to Washington.

“You saw the hit he threw,” Georgie says.

“Yeah, but you weren’t going to fight him,” Robbie says. “You were heading straight for the bench.”

Until Robbie wasn’t, which is another thing they both know.

“Can I have the Aspirin?” Georgie asks. “Or are you holding it hostage until I tell you I fought him so you wouldn’t end up a smear on the ice?”

“Fuck you,” Robbie says, tossing it at him. “I wouldn’t have.”

“You lost a fight to _Taylor Benson_ , you seriously think you could take on Jake Lourdes?” Georgie asks.

“Fuck you,” Robbie repeats. “I could’ve.”

“Last thing we needed was two guys on IR going into Tampa,” Georgie says.

“That it?” Robbie says.

“Robbie,” Georgie says. “My head’s fucking killing me, can we not—”

“Yeah, no,” Robbie says. “Whatever. Night.”

Georgie takes four, washes them down with a slightly stale mouthful of Gatorade, lies back down. Tylenol’s the one you’re not supposed to mix with booze, he’s pretty sure, so Aspirin’s better anyway. Well, you’re probably not supposed to mix any of them with booze, but whatever. He climbs back into bed and counts down minutes, the opposite of sheep. Nineteen minutes until the pain gets blurry. Eighteen. It’s hardly riveting, but unfortunately he still can’t sleep.

He keeps getting caught on the cut of Robbie’s hips above the sweats, the way they looked sharp enough to cut him. Not good, not with this much season left, the playoffs after, but that was an afterthought, Georgie mostly stuck on the fact that he wants them to. Cut his fingers on his hips, cut his mouth on the sharpness of his tongue. Cut himself on every single one of Robbie’s many sharp edges, and thank him for it.

Georgie read somewhere that orgasms alleviate headaches; the endorphins or something, and he feels like shit about it, but it does seem to help. Well, that or he hit the twenty minutes, but the important thing is that eventually the pain’s dulled enough that he can get to sleep.

He’s got a bit of a black eye in the morning, more of a smudge than anything else, hot and tender to the touch.

“If you think that makes you look cool or something,” Robbie says, when Georgie gives him back the Aspirin.

“It makes me look like I lost a fight,” Georgie says, and doesn’t watch the flash of teeth as Robbie laughs.


End file.
